Pasta comes in a myriad of shapes and sizes, and it can be confusing to choose the right pasta shape with the right sauce. Believe it or not, you’re not supposed to just top any old pasta with any old sauce.  Turns out, there’s a reason why certain pastas are paired with specific sauces. How do you know which pasta shape goes best with which sauce?

Which Pasta Shape Goes Best With Which Sauce?

A good rule of thumb when pairing a pasta shape with sauce is, “thin with thin, and thick with thick.” Meaning, pair smooth-surfaced, long, thin pasta—such as spaghetti, angel hair, or linguine—with wetter, thinner, butter- or olive oil-based sauces. Think of traditional pair-ups like linguine with clam sauce, or the simple spaghetti aglia olio, which is spaghetti with nothing more than a simple sauce made of good olive oil and garlic.

Thicker, richer, creamier, chunkier sauces tend to go well with larger pasta shapes with more surface area or textured surfaces designed to capture more sauce for a complete taste experience. So something like Fettucine Alfredo, a specialty of Northern Italy, uses a wider, flatter noodle to capture the richer sauce of butter, cream, and cheese. Penne alla Vodka is a tomato cream sauce that adorns ridged tube shapes cut on an angle. More sauce is delivered to you by clinging to the ridges and filling the hole of the penne (we’ve got the recipe for it, below!)

The classic dish of spaghetti and meatballs, with a thick meat sauce, is not something you see often in Italy. In Italy, a thick meat sauce, like Bolognese, is usually served with a larger, flatter, more substantial pasta such as tagliatelle (long, flat ribbons), farfalle (bowties), and pappardelle (broad, flat noodles); or else a large tubular shape like rigatoni, for the same reason—delivering more of the sauce to you via the pasta that will hold the most of it. In fact, the largest and flattest pasta shape of all, lasagne, is considered one of the penultimate deployments of Bolognese sauce.

Rules Are Meant To Be Broken!

Of course, rules are meant to be broken, and the best pasta shape to break those rules with is spaghetti. Spaghetti matches with so many different sauces, thick and creamy, to chunky, or thin. From the super simple Roman classic Spaghetti caccio e pepe, which is nothing more than spaghetti with pecorino Romano cheese and black pepper, loosened up with a little of the starchy cooking water from the pasta pot; to Carbonara, a rich sauce of bacon, eggs, and Parmesan cheese; to Puttanesca, a salty, chunky concoction of anchovies, olives, capers, tomatoes, oil and garlic — you can’t go wrong with easy, inexpensive spaghetti.

But no matter which pasta you choose, a good chef knows to always look for a balance of pasta and sauce. Sauce should simply adorn the noodles—cling to it, not overwhelm it so that your pasta is swimming in it. If you serve your dish and everyone at the table needs a bib, you’ve used too much.

Try this delicious pasta dish that traditionally uses penne (and now you know why), but you can use any pasta you choose—it will surely wow your dinner guests!

Want to try making your own fresh pasta? Check out our National Pasta Day Post for ideas!

Penne alla Vodka

  • Edward Higgins
  • #molongui-disabled-link
  • March 19, 2022
  • St. Paddy’s Day Leftovers? Whip Up Some Corned Beef Hash!
  • Edward Higgins
  • #molongui-disabled-link
  • May 27, 2021
  • American Flag Rules & Etiquette
  • Edward Higgins
  • #molongui-disabled-link
  • April 12, 2021
  • Fly Fishing: A Beginner’s Guide
  • Edward Higgins
  • #molongui-disabled-link
  • January 7, 2020
  • 5 Mistakes You Might Be Making With Your Cast Iron Skillet